Senior Leadership Update - Trevor Lewis

The end of 2022 is finally upon us, and I am sure most of us are more than pleased to see the end of this quite challenging year.

In the meetings the Senior Leadership Team have each week we often talk about how lucky we are as an organisation to have such skilled and dedicated staff supporting the people in our services. When faced with external challenges like Covid and a high cost of living, to still be focussed on providing people centred support which leads to positive outcomes for people is indeed an ability to be admired.

Looking at some of the principles of EGL that we incorporate into our support work, it doesn’t take too much effort to see how they can also be seen in our day to day lives, and this in turn shows the importance of having this focus in our work.

Self-determination: Having control of one’s own life. As we head into the end of year festive season, we want to be the person who decides on what we do, when, where and how. We will make our own decisions, which are sometimes guided and supported by those around us. People we support will of course have the same or similar aspirations for a happy end of year as we will and supporting them to make their own decisions on what they will be doing is no doubt a great gift in itself.

Relationship building: building and strengthening relationships with whanau and community. Many of us will take the opportunity of Christmas and New Year to spend valuable time with family and friends, strengthen our relationships, settle differences, and make some goals for connecting again in the New Year. We can help support that relationship building process with the people we support by checking they have had family contact or have plans in place for that. If they don’t have any family, are there friends or community groups they can connect with over the coming weeks?

On behalf of the Senior Leadership Team, we wish you an enjoyable Christmas and hope you do find the time for family and friends or take the opportunity to make some new friends. We appreciate your hard work and genuine passion for making a positive difference in people’s lives, what can be more rewarding than that.

Trevor Lewis

Operations Manager